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Officials Discuss Apartment Lease; Dredge Spoil Site

SNOW HILL – The Worcester County Commissioners worked their way through a busy agenda in just two hours on Tuesday, March 18. Here are some of the minor items discussed:

(bullet) Worcester County may not be fulfilling legal requirements to have surplus vehicles inspected before offering them for sale through government surplus auction site GovDeals, said Jacqueline Delisle Tuesday.

“I just wanted to bring this section of the code to your attention,” Delisle said.

Maryland code mandates that excess vehicles sold to the public be state inspected, she said. Wholesale dealers, who get the inspections done themselves, generally buy the surplus vehicles at live auctions but cars sold to the general public in Internet auctions need to be inspected, according to Delisle.

Commission president Virgil Shockley remarked that at farm sales, a lot of the trucks offered are not inspected. The new owner must then have the truck inspected to get license plates from the state. County attorney Sonny Bloxom said he would investigate further.

(bullet) The County Commissioners were taken aback by a lease agreement for an apartment presented for their approval Tuesday. The price to house the physicians who conduct the summer Hot Boards program in Ocean City increased from $8,000 to $11,000 this year. Commissioner Bud Church, a real estate agent by profession, was surprised by the increase.

“Can you get us a better deal?” commission president Virgil Shockley joked.

“With all the new construction going on there’s a huge amount of vacancies,” Church said. “To go from $8,000 to $11,000, in my opinion it seems a little high.”

The commissioners voted to investigate the price and try to renegotiate. “Take a look at it and bring it back,” Shockley said.

(bullet) Dredge spoil from Isle of Wight Bay will be drained and deposited on the beach at 33rd St. in Ocean City.

The town has agreed to take the sand dredged from the bay as it has in the past, deputy director of Public Works John Ross said.

The Army Corps of Engineers will dredge a navigation channel 125 feet wide and six feet deep from the Inlet channel to North 8th St. in Ocean City, and from there a channel 75 feet wide into Isle of Wight Bay.

Roughly 20,000 cubic yards of sand will be removed to restore the six-foot deep channel, with two feet of allowable over-depth in some areas.